Imagistic Care: Growing Old in a Precarious World

Datum
20. Mai 2025 

Book pre­sen­ta­tion in the frame­work of the webi­nar series „Unfold­ing Fini­tudes: Cur­rent Ethno­gra­phies of Aging, Dying and End-of-Life Care”

Book Pre­sen­tata­tion: „Imag­is­tic Care: Grow­ing Old in a Pre­car­i­ous World”

Webi­nar series Unfold­ing Fini­tudes: Cur­rent Ethno­gra­phies of Aging, Dying and End-of-Life Care
Tues­day 20 May 2025, 17.00–18.30 CEST

https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/2025/05/imagistic-care-growing-old-in-a-precarious-world

This ses­sion will focus on the edit­ed vol­ume Imag­is­tic Care: Grow­ing Old in a Pre­car­i­ous World (Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty Press), and we have the great plea­sure of hav­ing both edi­tors, Prof. Cheryl Mat­ting­ly (Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia) and Prof. Lone Grøn (VIVE – The Dan­ish Cen­ter for Social Sci­ence Research), as well as three of the con­tribut­ing authors, Dr. Har­man­deep Kaur Gill (Uni­ver­si­ty of Copen­hagen), Dr. Maria Louw (Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty), and Prof. Lotte Mein­ert (Aarhus Uni­ver­si­ty), present for this talk.

Reg­is­tra­tion: Please reg­is­ter here for this webi­nar: https://fd24.formdesk.com/universiteitleiden/ImagisticCare. You will then receive the zoom-link for the webi­nar one week in advance.

About the book

Imag­is­tic Care explores ethno­graph­i­cal­ly how images func­tion in our con­cepts, our writ­ing, our field­work, and our lives. With con­tri­bu­tions from anthro­pol­o­gists, philoso­phers and an artist, the vol­ume asks: How can imag­is­tic inquiries help us under­stand the com­plex entan­gle­ments of self and oth­er, depen­dence and inde­pen­den­cy, frailty and charis­ma, notions of good and bad aging, and norms and prac­tices of care in old age? And how can imag­is­tic inquiries offer grounds for critique?
Cut­ting between ethnog­ra­phy, phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy and art, this vol­ume offers a pow­er­ful con­tri­bu­tion to under­stand­ings of grow­ing old. The images cre­at­ed in words and draw­ings are used to com­pli­cate rather than sim­pli­fy the world. The con­trib­u­tors advance an under­stand­ing of care, and of aging itself, marked by alter­i­ty, spec­tral pres­ences and uncertainty.

About Unfold­ing Finitudes

The Euro­pean Research Coun­cil-fund­ed Glob­al­iz­ing Pal­lia­tive Care project (www.globalizingpalliativecare.com) at Lei­den Uni­ver­si­ty is host­ing a three-month­ly webi­nar series that high­lights cur­rent anthro­po­log­i­cal research on care, aging and dying. Dur­ing this series, invit­ed speak­ers present their recent or ongo­ing ethno­graph­ic work in this field. Our aim is to cre­ate a plat­form for dis­cus­sion of nov­el anthro­po­log­i­cal per­spec­tives on unfold­ing fini­tudes at the end of life.